An Interesting Challenge...
I spent this last week at the National YFC staff Conference, and it's been a great time.
While I was there, the MLS group met up for an hour or so, expecting to catch up and have a social experience together. As it turned out, the leaders had other ideas up their sleeves...
Basically, we were set the task of holding two 25 minute "meetings" - one to discuss the future of the national conference, and one to decide on a 5 year plan for the YFC sports teams. That bit sounded quite easy. The hard bit was that we each had to take a turn in Chairing the meeting for 5 minutes.
Now normally I'm quite happy leading meetings, and especially ones where you're discussing big "vision" type ideas, but to chair just a small part of a meeting where the basic line of discussion has already been set by another "chairman", and all that without any pre-thought-through agenda, was quite tough and frustrating.
So, I spent a large part of our time trying to do my "pre-meeting prep" and by the time I actually worked out what the thing was that we REALLY needed to be talking about, my chance at chairman had passed and we we're summing our discussions.
And what did I learn? Well, primarily that knowing what you want to talk about before a meeting is paramount. But I did also come to realise that chairing a meeting isn't about having great ideas - it's about setting an arena for others to have great ideas and encouraging "every-person participation"
So, if YOU have meetings that you attend where your heart is really to think creatively and problem solve, you need to find someone else to be the chairperson. Simple huh?
While I was there, the MLS group met up for an hour or so, expecting to catch up and have a social experience together. As it turned out, the leaders had other ideas up their sleeves...
Basically, we were set the task of holding two 25 minute "meetings" - one to discuss the future of the national conference, and one to decide on a 5 year plan for the YFC sports teams. That bit sounded quite easy. The hard bit was that we each had to take a turn in Chairing the meeting for 5 minutes.
Now normally I'm quite happy leading meetings, and especially ones where you're discussing big "vision" type ideas, but to chair just a small part of a meeting where the basic line of discussion has already been set by another "chairman", and all that without any pre-thought-through agenda, was quite tough and frustrating.
So, I spent a large part of our time trying to do my "pre-meeting prep" and by the time I actually worked out what the thing was that we REALLY needed to be talking about, my chance at chairman had passed and we we're summing our discussions.
And what did I learn? Well, primarily that knowing what you want to talk about before a meeting is paramount. But I did also come to realise that chairing a meeting isn't about having great ideas - it's about setting an arena for others to have great ideas and encouraging "every-person participation"
So, if YOU have meetings that you attend where your heart is really to think creatively and problem solve, you need to find someone else to be the chairperson. Simple huh?
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